Monday, September 29, 2008

4 points in a football game? Yes, it has been done!

In an ESPN game no less. Iowa 6 Penn St. 4 10/23/04. Props to Kirk Ferentz for contributing to the annals of weird football scores and giving Penn St. their 2nd safety instead of punting from the 1 yard line. No wonder you always hear his name when NFL jobs become open.

What about 4 points during a game?

Check out this amazing box score for last year's game between UMass and URI

3rd 13:15 UMASS - Victor Cruz safety
UMASS 4 - URI 6


The final score was an ordinary 12-6, which is too bad, because UMass scored their 6 points on 3 safeties! Kyle Harrington had to ruin everything by getting another safety making the score completely forgettable. They ended up losing in overtime anyway, so I hope he learned his lesson. You could've been part of history Kyle. You could've been a contender.

Also worth noting, the first ever college football game in 1869 between Rutgers and Princeton ended in a 6-4 Rutgers victory. Obviously scoring was vastly different in those days, as were attitudes about the game. One professor was seen waving an umbrella during the contest, yelling "you will come to no Christian end!"

Besides Auburn/Miss. St., has any football game ever ended with a 3-2 score?

Yes, it has happened 6 other times in NCAA history.

Clemson 3, Duke 2 - Oct. 16, 1965 at Durham, N.C.

TCU 3, Texas 2 - Nov. 12, 1960 in Fort Worth

TCU 3, LSU 2 - Jan. 1, 1936 at New Orleans, La. (Sugar Bowl)

Iowa State 3, Kansas State 2 - Nov. 20, 1926 at Manhattan, Kan.

Iowa State 3, Kansas State 2 - Nov. 9, 1929 at Manhattan, Kan.

VMI 3, Kentucky 2 - Nov. 2, 1912 at Lexington, Ky.


This game also came very close to ending in a 4-3 final score. In the 4th quarter, with Mississippi St. down 3-2 and on the Auburn 45 or so, facing a 4th and 15, I was gearing up for a pooch punt that would pin Auburn back and allow the possibility of another safety. Inexplicably, Sylvester Croom went for it, to the shagrin of not only me but the color commentator, who lambasted him for this decision. Sure it didn't make sense football strategy wise, there was plenty of time left to force a 3 and out and get the ball back, but it also killed a relatively decent chance that the bulldogs would finish with 4 points, which also should've been taken into account. In conclusion, fuck Sylvester Croom.

Has an American Football team ever scored 1 point in a game?

No.

BUT

In 1948, the AAFC's (predecessor of the AFL) Brooklyn Dodgers played a pre-season game against the CFL's Montreal Alouettes in which the first half featured Canadian rules and the 2nd half featured American rules. The final score was 27-1, with the Dodgers beating the Alouettes. Presumably the 1 point was scored on a "rouge", whatever that is.

Source: http://www.luckyshow.org/football/BkDodgers.htm

The only way this would occur in a non-Canadian rules game would be for the defensive team to get a 1 point safety after they gave up a TD. More details here.

You can simulate this in NCAA Football for Playstation or XBox. Just score a TD, then on the 2 point try, run all the way back into your own end zone and either get tackled there or step out of bounds. The score should end up 6-1! Unfortunately, it appears that this little quirk wasn't included in the latest version.